65. Chapter 65
65
Konstantin
T he Bratva office sits three floors below ground level of Belov Tower downtown—steel-reinforced concrete walls, no windows, air filtered through systems designed for military bunkers. The antithesis of my penthouse office with its glass walls and city views. This is where the real work happens. The work that doesn’t make it onto balance sheets or annual reports.
I stride through the reinforced door, access granted by retinal scan. The room falls silent as I enter, eyes tracking my movement.
“You look like shit, boss,” Timur mutters, leaning back against the wall.
“Didn’t sleep,” I say, and it’s almost the truth. Almost. I slept. On and off. Between pacing the hallway outside Bella’s room and staring at the ceiling like it held answers. It didn’t. Neither did the hours I spent replaying the sound of her crying in my head. The way she tried to cover it. The way it sliced through me like a blade.
Arseny is mid-sentence when he notices me, a slight nod the only acknowledgment before he continues. His focus is on a map projected on the wall, red markers indicating Savin’s suspected routes. “…and that’s why I think Savin is moving product through Newark instead of the usual channels. He’s playing chess while we’re playing war.”
I take my seat at the head of the table. The usual crew—Timur, Oleg, Viktor, and a few others whose loyalty has been tested by blood and time. Men who would die for the Bratva. For my father. Soon, for me.
Five days. Five days until I officially become Pakhan . The countdown ticks in my head like a metronome, steady and relentless.
“Savin’s artillery?” I ask, forcing my focus back to the matter at hand.
Timur slides a tablet across the table. “Twenty-seven men, mostly ex-military. Heavy artillery, but nothing we haven’t seen before.”
I scan the report, mind categorizing threats and solutions automatically. This is the world I understand. Clean. Strategic. No messy emotions or complicated women with blue eyes that haunt my dreams.
“Double the watch on our eastern warehouses,” I say. “And cut his supply chain. I want his product sitting in trucks with nowhere to go.”
Nods around the table. No questions. This is how power works—decisions made, orders followed.
“Now,” I set down the tablet, “update on Tatiana.”
The atmosphere shifts subtly. My stepmother’s name has that effect.
Timur stands, replacing the map with surveillance photos. “She met with your father at the seaside villa last night. Meeting lasted two hours. No audio, but body language suggested tension.”
Photos flip across the screen—my father and Tatiana on the veranda. Her posture too stiff. His expression hardening. The look of a man delivering bad news.
“He told her,” I conclude.
Timur nods. “We believe so. That you become Pakhan , not Filipp.”
“And her reaction?”
“Outwardly calm. Too calm,” Timur says, advancing to the next photo. “But this was taken as she was leaving.”
Tatiana’s face, captured in a grainy still, jaw clenched, eyes dark. The look of a woman plotting.
“Three hours later,” Timur continues, “she was here.”
The Borzoi Club. Volkov territory—old money, old blood, longtime rivals to the Belov empire.
“Meeting with Mikhail Volkov himself,” I observe. “She didn’t waste time.”
Timur’s fingers fly over the tablet, pulling up another feed. Surveillance footage from the Borzoi Club. Tatiana and Mikhail Volkov, side by side at the bar, heads tilted close. Her face is serene, a porcelain mask, but her grip on her glass is tight enough to crack it.
“She’s running scared,” Arseny mutters, lighting another cigarette. “Knows she’s losing power once you take over.”
“She’s not just scared,” I say. “She’s desperate. And desperate people do stupid things.”
“Like bringing in Mikhail Volkov,” Timur says. “That’s a man who never does anything for free.”
“Which means,” Arseny says, blowing out a long stream of smoke, “Tatiana’s made a deal. And it’s not just protection she’s after.”
“Or reaching out to ghosts,” Timur says softly.
My head snaps up. “Explain.”
Timur hesitates, then slides a final photo onto the table. The image is grainy, captured at night through a telephoto lens, but clear enough to recognize Tatiana exiting the Volkov family mausoleum.
“This was taken just hours after her meeting with Mikhail at the Borzoi Club,” he says. “She visited Pavel Volkov’s tomb.”
Pavel Volkov—Mikhail’s younger brother, killed during the territory disputes fifteen years ago. A death many believe my father orchestrated.
He taps the corner of the image, where Tatiana is placing a small object near the entrance.
“A phone,” I recognize, squinting at the blurry image. “Untraceable?”
“Completely. Our team managed to retrieve it after she left, but it was wiped clean. Factory reset.”
“She’s opening old wounds,” I say quietly. “Reminding Mikhail why he hates our family.”
“And establishing a communication channel. One we can’t monitor,” Arseny adds.
Silence falls over the room as we all consider the implications.
“What’s her play?” Oleg finally asks. “Meeting with Volkov is one thing, but this…”
“We don’t know yet,” I admit, studying the image. “But whatever she’s planning, she needs the Volkovs’ help.”
“And that means trouble,” Arseny says, his voice grim. “The Volkovs don’t forgive, and they don’t forget.”
“Especially not Pavel,” Timur adds quietly.
I tap the image of the phone. “We need to know what was on this before it was wiped. And we need that mole in place immediately.”
Suka . If she didn’t have her claws so deep in my father’s balls, I would gladly put a bullet between that woman’s eyes myself. But even I have lines I won’t cross—Anatoly still believes in her, still sees her as the obedient young wife he molded out of desperation and paranoia. And as long as he draws breath, Tatiana’s untouchable.
For now.
I stand abruptly, the chair scraping against the concrete floor. “Enough. We run through everything. Every detail.”
I stride to my briefcase and pull out the leather folio, spreading the contents across the table. Architectural plans for St. Nicholas Cathedral unfold—a Russian Orthodox church nestled in the hills of Big Sur, built in 1921 when my great-grandfather first established the family’s West Coast operations. Four generations of Pakhan have taken their oaths beneath its modest copper dome, hidden from public view on private Belov land. In five days, I’ll be the fifth.
My fingers trace the reinforced walls on the blueprints, lingering over the private underground passage that connects to the family mausoleum—a Belov family secret not found on any official plans.
“The security protocols for the ceremony,” I say smoothly, covering my momentary lapse. “Where are we?”
Victor taps his tablet, bringing up enhanced versions of the cathedral plans. “Three perimeters, rotating shifts. Every guest vetted personally. The inner sanctum will have jammers for any unauthorized electronics, and we’ve secured the surrounding hills and access roads.”
Arseny leans forward, his eyes tracing the cathedral’s layout with the same focus he reserves for battle plans.
“Five generations,” he says. “Guess it’s tradition now.”
Timur’s jaw tightens, his gaze fixed on the map. “And old buildings mean old vulnerabilities.”
“The passage from the crypt,” I say, tapping the hidden corridor. “We keep it sealed. No one in or out without clearance.”
Arseny nods, but his eyes stay on the eastern wall. “And the stained glass? Thin, fragile. A sniper could—”
“Already reinforced,” I say, cutting him off. “Triple-paned ballistic glass installed last month. And the bell tower?”
Timur slides a new set of photos across the table—images of the tower’s interior, every angle captured, every potential blind spot noted.
“Cleared and secured. We have two teams stationed on the roof, snipers positioned for a full 360-view.”
Something’s not adding up. I can feel it gnawing at the back of my mind, a whisper that won’t shut up.
Arseny pushes back from the table.
“Everything’s too quiet,” he says finally, voicing the thought that’s been circling in my mind.
“ Blyat . Unless she’s planning something for the succession ceremony,” Timur says, his voice tight. “Using Mikhail’s thirst for revenge.”
Arseny’s fingers drum against the table. “An assassination attempt would be bold, even for Tatiana.”
“Bold but effective,” I say. “Remove me, pave the way for Filipp to take my place. She gets exactly what she wants.”
“We don’t know for certain—” Timur begins.
“We don’t need certainty,” I cut him off. “We need to be prepared. Triple the security at the cathedral. No one enters without full verification.”
Viktor nods from his position near the door, already reaching for his secure phone to relay orders to the security teams. Arseny shifts in his chair, the leather creaking beneath him as he leans forward.
“And… Irina?” he asks, the name hanging in the air like smoke.
He doesn’t finish, but we all feel the weight of the unspoken words. If Tatiana’s lining up her pieces, Irina’s the queen she’ll play. And if Irina’s still out there, she’s been biding her time for seven years.
Timur looks up, eyes dark and serious, fingers steepled beneath his chin. “That’s why you had the trackers installed, isn’t it? On the kids and Bella.”
I let out a slow breath, the ache in my jaw easing just a fraction. My head is pounding. Too much tension. Too little sleep. The memory of Bella’s sobs still clings to me like the scent of her perfume—impossible to forget.
Arseny’s gaze meets mine across the table, his scarred eyebrow lifting slightly. “You think she’s after Bella?”
“I think she’s after me,” I say, running a hand along the edge of the blueprint. “But she’ll use whatever leverage she can find.”
Arseny’s jaw tightens, a muscle jumping beneath the stubble. His knuckles whiten as he sets down his unlit cigarette with deliberate care. We’ve been through hell together, but even he seems surprised by the turn of events—by how much things have changed in just a few weeks.
“Double down on security for Bella and the kids,” I say, pushing back from the table. The chair scrapes against the floor, the sound harsh in the quiet room. “Lev and Nikolai think those new watches are just a reward for surviving finals. Alya’s pendant? She won’t take it off because it’s ‘princess-proof.’ Julian and Lila have theirs, too. Different styles. Same purpose. Trackers. None of them know. And I’d prefer to keep it that way.”
I straighten my cuffs. When I look up, my voice is steel.
“And find me Irina. Now.”